Students settle school expulsion lawsuit

KNIGHTSTOWN, Ind. – Three students and their families have settled a civil-rights lawsuit over the students’ expulsions for making a movie in which evil teddy bears attack a teacher.\nThe settlement with the Charles A. Beard School Corp. was approved by the school board on a 5-2 vote Tuesday.\nThe lawsuit resulted from a dispute over a movie titled “The Teddy Bear Master” made by four students and distributed on DVD. School officials saw the movie as a threat to Knightstown Intermediate School teacher Dan Clevenger and expelled the four.\nTwo of the students, Isaac Imel and Cody Overbay, sued the school corporation, which is 35 miles east of Indianapolis, on grounds it had violated their First Amendment rights. A third student, Charlie Ours, later joined the lawsuit. The fourth student did not challenge the school’s expulsion.\nThe boys, who are sophomores, completed the movie last summer. In it, the “teddy bear master” orders stuffed animals to kill a teacher who had embarrassed him, but students battle the toy beasts, according to documents filed in court.\nSuperintendent David McGuire said the school district’s insurance company will cover the cost of the $69,000 settlement that will be split among the plaintiffs.\nSchool Board President Mike Fruth cast one of the dissenting votes.\n“I don’t agree with our justice system,” Fruth said.\nThe settlement terms also require the students’ suspensions and expulsions be expunged from their records, that the students be allowed to make up missed work, and that Imel and Ours write a letter of apology to Clevenger and his wife.\nU.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker in December had granted a preliminary injunction against the expulsions of Imel and Overbay, saying school officials had not proved the movie disrupted school. Barker in her ruling described the movie as “humiliating” and “obscene.”